Don't Tell the Groom

by Anna Bell

  ‘A wedding date. How wonderful,’ says Violet, clapping her hands together.

  Now, don’t get me wrong. Nanny Violet is not evil. She is a nice nanny. It is just that since we’ve got engaged she seems to be out to get me and I’m definitely not being paranoid, no matter what Mark says to me.

  I perch on the sofa next to Mark, suddenly unable to relax in my own house.

  ‘I’m allowed to know the date at least, aren’t I?’ asks Mark, laughing.

  ‘Of course you are, silly. You need to know when to turn up! It’s the 18th of May.’

  ‘Wow. Just under three months before you become Mrs Robinson.’

  Here comes The Lemonheads again.

  ‘I know, I can’t believe it.’ I give Mark a little peck on the cheek, forgetting that Violet is there.

  But as I turn back into the room she’s giving me the Look. The one I can’t decipher.

  ‘Anyone want tea?’ I ask, jumping up. There’s something going on with Nanny Violet and I can’t work out what.

  I know she doesn’t approve of the whole ‘don’t tell the groom’ principle, but I’m convinced there’s more to that look than meets the eye. I am not being paranoid. I think Nanny Violet is out to get me.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Pen, can you come in here for a moment?’ calls Mark.

  I’m being summoned to the lounge while I’m cooking dinner. This has to be serious as Mark knows that if he interrupts me there is always a danger that I’ll never go back into the kitchen and finish cooking.

  ‘What’s up?’ I ask, sitting down on the sofa next to him.

  ‘We need to have a serious chat.’

  ‘OK,’ I say.

  My heart starts to beat faster and I want to reach for a bag as I can feel a panic attack coming on. I’m getting clammy and a full-on sweat is beginning to break out across my brow. I am certain that he has found out about the wedding account and my dirty little gambling habit. What else would he have to tell me?

  He takes my hand in his and starts to massage it. This isn’t going to be good. He is obviously softening me up before he breaks up with me. What if it isn’t to do with my gambling habit at all? What if Mark has met someone else and he’s leaving me? I just couldn’t take it.

  ‘What’s wrong, Mark?’

  ‘It’s about the “don’t tell the groom” thing.’

  Oh no, please don’t tell me he’s changed his mind. He was doing so well.

  ‘What about it?’ I ask cautiously.

  ‘Well, Nan was talking about it when she came over at the weekend.’

  Oh, I should have known Violet would be involved in this. I know she has it in for me at the moment.

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She was just talking about us getting married and she was voicing her concerns.’

  ‘I knew it. I know she doesn’t like me.’

  ‘Pen, it has nothing to do with her not liking you. I’ve told you, you’re imagining that.’

  I am definitely not imagining it.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t that, then what?’ I ask.

  ‘She was disappointed that I won’t be picking where we’re getting married and I think it has really upset her.’

  ‘But you don’t mind not knowing, do you?’

  ‘No, I do trust you. It’s just that I think Nan is worried about what the ceremony is going to be like.’

  ‘Hey, it’s not like I’m going to book us a pagan wedding ceremony or anything.’

  Hang on, that isn’t such a bad idea, thinking about it. I would make an excellent pagan bride. I could grow my hair and have it in loose curls with a garland of woodland flowers on my head. I could have a flowing dress with bat-like sleeves and I’d be a cross between a fairy and an earth mother goddess. I wonder if Mark would like that as a theme?

  ‘Penny, are you OK?’

  I’ve done it again. I’ve gone into my wedding daydream. As I have said many a time before, this wedding planning is dangerous, taking away your concentration without notice.

  ‘Sorry, I got lost in the moment. You were saying about Nanny Violet.’

  ‘Yeah, she was sad that we’re not getting married in her church.’

  In her church? I want to scream. Does she have any idea how much weddings in a church cost? Not that I have any idea myself, but they have to be expensive. It is like hiring a whole separate venue. It isn’t like a quick five hundred pound registry office affair.

  ‘Her church,’ I say slowly.

  ‘Yes, St James and St Thomas. We went there once, you remember, for my granddad’s funeral.’

  I stroke Mark’s hand in recognition of the memory. I do remember. It was a beautiful old-fashioned church.

  ‘Is that what you want?’ I ask.

  ‘It would mean a lot to my family, and to me – I suppose.’

  ‘I guess I hadn’t given it much thought.’

  Looking at Mark’s face is killing me. I’ll have to book the church. There’s no way I can let him down on his one request. Even if it means I have to walk to the church and forgo my fancy car.

  ‘OK, Mark. I’ll pop in and see the vicar.’

  ‘Thanks, Pen. I’m so sorry to ruin your “don’t tell the groom” theme, but I think this is just too important.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mark. There’s still plenty that you won’t know,’ I say, trying to smile.

  There is also plenty that I don’t know either. Like how the hell I am going to pay for a church wedding.

  The next night I am sitting in a freezing cold church hall waiting for the vicar to come in and see me. The nice lady who was flower-arranging in the main part of the church said he’d be along any minute now. On reflection, perhaps I should have just followed the woman around the church to pick up some tips as I start my first flower-arranging class on Thursday.

  ‘Ah, Penelope, is it?’ says the vicar as he walks into the hall.

  It’s nice when people wear such distinctive uniforms that they are instantly identifiable.

  ‘Call me Penny.’

  ‘Well then, Penelope, nice to meet you. I’m Reverend Phillips.’

  ‘Nice to meet you too,’ I say, shaking his hand. Penelope it is then.

  ‘So I understand that you want to get married at St James and St Thomas?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And where’s your fiancé? Usually we have a meeting with both of you. Unless he’s serving abroad? We have a few military weddings here.’

  ‘Oh no. He’s at home.’

  ‘Well, it is usually better to have these discussions with both of you. We need to check whether this is the right type of wedding for you both.’

  ‘Oh, it is. His nan Violet is one of your parishioners and Mark really wants the wedding to be here.’

  ‘And yet he is at home?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s not like that.’

  The vicar must think Mark is the laziest man around.

  ‘It’s just we’re doing a “don’t tell the groom” wedding. Which is a bit like the BBC programme Don’t Tell the Bride. Have you seen it?’

  ‘No, but I have heard of it,’ he says. He doesn’t sound impressed.

  ‘Right. Well, it’s like that. I’m not telling Mark what I’m planning.’

  ‘I see. And it is being filmed, is it?’

  I somehow think people don’t actually get that it is an analogy. It is like the TV programme but it isn’t actually a TV programme.

  ‘No, it isn’t.’

  ‘So why are you doing it?’

  ‘Because we thought it would be fun.’

  The vicar is scratching his head and I think I might be losing him. This is the only part of the whole wedding that Mark has insisted on and I’m in danger of it not happening.

  ‘Penelope, marriage between two people should not be entered into lightly.’

  ‘And it isn’t with me and Mark. We’ve been living together forever and I’ve been wanting him to propose to me for years.’

&
nbsp; Hang on, that didn’t come out right. I didn’t mean to announce to the vicar that we are living in sin. That wasn’t going to count against us, was it?

  ‘Let me rephrase this. I won’t agree to do a wedding unless I meet you both. You’ll both have to attend a marriage preparation class here, as well as attending services when your banns are being read.’

  Marriage preparation class? Flipping heck. How much was that going to cost?

  ‘So what you’re saying is that Mark needs to come and meet you for us to get married here?’

  ‘That is exactly what I’m saying. As fun as it must seem with you organising this thing on your own, the actual marriage is a sacred vow and should not be part of the fun. That is the part of the day that your wedding is all about. That half an hour will change your life. Not the dinner you eat afterwards or the amount you dance. That half an hour and those vows you take are what starts your whole journey of marriage.’

  I feel about the size of a two-year-old.

  ‘Can I call Mark and get him to come?’

  ‘If he’s quick. We’ve got an Alpha course here at eight.’

  ‘OK, I’ll make him hurry. Before I call him, can I just check that you’re free on our date? I don’t want to get him all the way here and be disappointed,’ I say. I would hate to see Mark be upset about the one part of the wedding he’s actually chosen.

  ‘Very well,’ he says, opening the large black book he had wedged under his arm. ‘What date were you looking at, Penelope?’

  ‘The 18th of May.’

  ‘Next year?’ he asks.

  ‘This year,’ I just about squeak.

  Reverend Phillips is not very good at hiding what he is thinking; his disapproval seems to be written all over his face.

  ‘Right. Well, you seem to be in luck. We have a wedding at 1 p.m. and then the rest of the day is free thanks to a cancellation at 3 p.m.,’ he says.

  ‘Perfect! I mean, not perfect that someone had to cancel their wedding, but great news there is space for us!’ Blimey, does anyone have a shovel to dig me out of this hole? This is all too good to be true. Both the church and the museum have the same date free. It couldn’t possibly be this smooth-running, could it?

  ‘Can you tell me how much it is going to cost?’ I ask.

  ‘It costs three hundred and fifty pounds. Then by the time you’ve added the wedding licenses and the charges for an organist, it will probably come to about four hundred pounds.’

  Wow, that was a lot less than I was expecting. My mouth is agape in surprise. A good surprise, for a change.

  ‘And what about the marriage classes and the reading of the banns?’ I ask. Surely they have to get you somehow.

  ‘The marriage classes are free and the banns certificate costs twenty-five pounds.’

  ‘That’s such a bargain.’

  Oh, I didn’t mean to say that out loud.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ says Reverend Phillips, sighing. ‘Now go and call your fiancé and we can talk about this seriously.’

  I nod and run out of the church as quick as my little legs can take me to find a mobile signal to call Mark.

  The next night I’m so excited that we have the church and the reception booked on the same day. Now I’m into full-on wedding planning mode.

  If only I’d known sooner that it was cheaper to get married in a church than at a registry office. And we get a marriage preparation class thrown in for that, which makes it an absolute bargain. So with the seventy-five pounds we’ve saved by getting married in a church, I’ve decided to plough on with the invitations. We’ve just got the teeny tiny matter of sorting out the guest list first so that I know how many invites to order.

  Mark and I are currently sitting on opposite sides of the room. It’s like pistols at dawn. We’re on about round three of drawing up our lists. We’re both writing down the guests that we want to invite and then we swap pieces of paper. From there we get to challenge and veto each other’s choices.

  It’s going pretty well so far. I’ve told Mark that we’re only having eighty people as that will give the wedding a more intimate feel, and we’ve managed to shave fifteen people off our first attempt at the guest list. Now we’ve only got to get rid of six more people.

  ‘What about Sheila and Tony?’ I say, reading Mark’s almost indecipherable handwriting.

  ‘They’re my godparents.’

  ‘Yes, but do we ever see them?’

  ‘We see them at my parents’ house on Christmas Eve every year.’

  ‘Oh, that’s those people.’

  So that’s who they are. I’m not usually that rubbish with names, but Mark thought it was a good idea to take me home to meet his family for the first time on Christmas Eve five years ago. There were just so many of his relatives and family friends there that I couldn’t take everyone in. And Sheila and Tony, as I now know they are, had introduced themselves to me and of course I promptly forgot what they’d told me. And now every Christmas Eve they embrace me like I’m their long-lost daughter and I have no clue who they are. But now I do. And so I suppose they’ll have to stay on the list.

  ‘What about Kate and Sylvie?’ asks Mark.

  ‘They have to come. I lived with them at university.’

  ‘And when was the last time you saw them?’

  I wriggle in my chair. So I haven’t seen them for a few years, but that’s not what counts, is it, with old friends? I’m sure they’d invite me to their wedding, wouldn’t they?

  ‘If you can’t remember when you last saw them then they can’t come.’

  Gosh, Mark is being bossy tonight. It’s quite a turn-on. I wonder if instead of the invitations we could go upstairs and, you know, practise for when we want to start stage six.

  ‘I know! They came to our Halloween party, when they were dressed as sailors.’

  ‘That wasn’t Halloween. That was the nautical-themed birthday party you had for your twenty-fifth. So four years ago.’

  Bugger. So it looks like Kate and Sylvie are off the invite list.

  ‘OK, what about NV I’ve never even heard of a friend called NV,’ I say.

  ‘That’s Nanny Violet. You’re not suggesting we don’t invite her?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Stupid Mark and his stupid abbreviations.

  ‘Look, we’ve only got four more to go. And don’t forget some people might not be able to come and then we’d be able to invite these people in reserve.’

  ‘OK,’ I say, looking at the list. ‘What about Pam and Ben?’

  ‘Ben’s an old family friend.’

  ‘Did you go to his wedding?’

  ‘No, but his wedding was in Scotland.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. If he didn’t invite you, you don’t have to invite them.’

  Mark wrinkles his nose. Ha, I had him there. It seems he’s met his match.

  ‘Fine,’ he says. ‘Just two more to go.’

  ‘What about Mike and Amanda?’ I ask, looking at his list. I’m quite surprised that he even put them down. They’re his boss and his wife. ‘Can’t you just invite them to the evening? You know he always makes you nervous.’

  ‘I guess that’s true.’

  It was. They came round to dinner once and Mark was so nervous that he developed a funny little laugh that sounded like he’d inhaled a helium balloon. It was not a fun evening.

  ‘Great. Then that’s that. Eighty guests.’

  Wow, we did it. At this rate we are going to be well within my budget.

  All I have to do now is design the invitation. I’ve already bookmarked a cheap-as-chips online printer. They have these handy templates, so I just need to make a few personal tweaks, and voilà, we have invitations. Although we don’t have actual invitations yet as I’m being tight and we have to wait for twenty-one days for delivery. But hey, sometimes it says they’ll ship faster, so fingers crossed. And they will still be here more than six weeks before the wedding.

  I might send everyone a quick little email to let them know the
actual date, just to be on the safe side.

  I look at the PDF version of the invitation and I can’t help but smile. To be in keeping with the ‘don’t tell the groom’ theme, they’ve only got the church details listed. It simply says ‘Reception to follow’. I’ll pop a little printed card in with it, with the details of the nearest hotels to the museum (once I’ve researched them), and I’ll let them know that it is only a fifteen-minute drive from the church to the reception.

  Somehow seeing the time and location of our actual marriage ceremony underneath our names is making it all seem so real. In three months Mark and I will be husband and wife. It’s so close now that I feel I can reach out and grab it. I’ve just got to make sure I don’t do anything else stupid to mess it up.

  Chapter Ten

  I can’t believe that two whole weeks have gone by since I booked the wedding venue and the church and made the invitations. That is all I have done. But those are the most important bits, right? We are actually getting married and we have somewhere to go after and our guests will know about it thanks to the invites, all for the princely sum of £932. I’m going to gloss over the fact that we don’t have anything to eat, to listen to, or for me and Mark to wear. But that’s fine. I’ve got well over two months to deal with those little details.

  ‘Bye, Betty. See you next week.’ I wave as Betty walks off to the bus stop. She’s got her son and her grandchildren coming to lunch at her house today so she can’t stop with the other ladies for coffee after our Saturday club.

  For once I’m not rushing off to make it look like I’m back from Zumba. I’ve told Mark that I’m taking Lou to see the venue and for the first time in ages, when it comes to the wedding, I’m not lying.

  It has taken me a long time to get Lou to come and see the venue. We’ve both been very busy lately, me with my ‘work’ aka secret wedding plans and Lou with … well, she has been really vague with what she has been up to.

  I’ve been very secret squirrel with Lou. I haven’t told her anything about where she’s coming to meet me. I sent her a text with the postcode an hour ago in the hope that she’d just put it in her sat nav and not Google it first.